Let the Sunrise in the Morning Give Its Light
by Fluffernutter8
Summary: "Another accident in a series of accidents, and you think that this might be the most fortunate one of all." B/B oneshot post-season 6 finale.


Nothing happens on the night Vincent is murdered. Not when you can't forget how Booth told you that everything was alright and then Vincent didn't get up. Not when you just fall asleep with his hand on your back and his voice in your ear.

You tell Angela about it, about how it felt comfortable and scary at the same time. She bites her lip against a squeal and gives you a hug and doesn't even ask about "the good stuff."

It doesn't happen the night Vincent is murdered, but it does happen the next night. After you say goodbye to Vincent and everyone turns to go to The Queen's English, his favorite pub in the city. After you tuck yourself against Booth's side, unsure of how to act after a night of lying beside a man when all you did was sleep. After you drive to the bar and everyone settles around and shares more good memories of Vincent, but are mostly quiet really. After Cam has to go to Michelle's dance performance, after Hodgins takes a tearful Angela to bed, after Arastoo drives Sweets and Daisy and Fisher home and you and Booth are the only two left.

"I don't know why the Nigel-Murrays insisted on flying Vincent back to England right away," you say quietly. "It isn't as if he was Jewish and requires a next day burial."

"I think that they just wanted him to come home as soon as possible." Booth has been sipping the same beer for two hours, contemplating. You wonder whether he really doesn't blame himself. Sometimes it's hard for you to tell what Booth is feeling. And sometimes it is far too easy.

You look around the pub, which Vincent's British national alternative to the Founding Father's, the place he always chose for the team to go on his birthday or if he got the big break in a case. It's like the first time you went back to the diner after Zack. You wished that you could have let him choose to take you all there more often. It had taken so little to make him happy, and you hadn't done that for him and you regretted that.

The words slip out of your mouth before you can check them. "Booth, I don't want to have any regrets."

"I don't know anyone who does, Bones," He pushes back from the bar. "I don't know-" And then it hits him, the meaning of those words and he freezes. "You know, Bones, it's late, and we've been drinking. Maybe I should call you a cab."

"You know my tolerance is higher than a couple of glasses of wine," you say with a little laugh, but you follow him outside anyway. He flicks his fingers into the street with that easy, coat-swinging movement that he has always had and a taxi swerves to a stop beside the sidewalk. He stands aside to let you step in, you feel the brush of his hand on your shoulder and you are turning around in the seat, preparing to wave to him as you drive away, but he is sliding in alongside you.

"Where?" he says, his voice serious and determined, his eyes directly on yours, and you know that you've been orbiting for the past few years and that is done.

It is three days later when you wake up in your bed- alone, no Booth next to you as he has been twice already this week- and realize that you forgot protection that first night. It is very unlike you, and there is no excuse. You were not overcome by grief, you were not overly tipsy. You simply brought Booth back with you and _forgot_.

Statistically it is unlikely that you became pregnant from that one night, but you decide it is better to check anyway, as soon as is viable.

Two weeks, a run to Walgreens, and trip to the bathroom, and you are sitting in your kitchen, writing up a list. "Tell Angela," "Tell Cam," and "Tell Dad," are interspersed between "Make appointment with Dr. Castille" and "Buy neonatal vitamins". You are barely thinking when "Tell Booth" slips out of your pen, another accident in a series of accidents, and you think that this might be the most fortunate one of all, and you know what you have to do.

You notice children more often these days. The twin boys next door who threaten to kill each other four times a day, the small girl who comes with her mother to work at the diner. You watch how Booth interacts with them more, see whether he smiles at or touches them. You go out with him and Parker on a Sunday and watch how he speaks to, teaches, disciplines his son. Intellectually you realize that you are evaluating him as a mate and a father, but when he lies sleeping beside you Sunday night and his hand slides across your stomach, you know that emotionally it is something more.

You are still afraid to tell him. You observe how he interacts with Rebecca, with a coolness and distance that you felt from him when he came back from Afghanistan, and you hope that the two of you don't end up like that again. You think about the things that you don't talk about and whether they will come between you. You wonder about the unconventionality of the two of you, and about whether he will want to get married (probably yes), about whether you will want to (not yet), about whether it will matter (you are afraid that it might).

You tell him, standing on the street on the way back from the hospital, and the way that he smiles, you begin to suspect that it might all be okay.

That night, you lie together in your bed. He already keeps t-shirts and sweatpants at your place. He feels as warm and comforting as he always has, like he did in Vince McVicar's barn, like he did back in the days of guy hugs. It is an intimacy that you feared lost and it is an intimacy that you never would have imagined having with him the first night that you suggested sex or when you planned having his baby like you would plan a book tour and it is an intimacy that you find yourself not wanting to lose again.

"I love you," you say, abrupt and unorthodox as always. It is the first time that you have said it aloud. "Do you think that I can love the baby?"

"Bones." His voice is simple and steady, the one he uses when he articulates truths about yourself that you cannot find the words to say for yourself. "Asking that means that you already do."


End file.
